Hailey Bieber Sued Over Rhode Beauty Name
Hailey Bieber's namesake skincare brand—Rhode—is being sued by a clothing brand with the same name.
Things aren't looking good for the Biebers. After Justin's recent health scare, now Hailey Bieber is encountering an entirely new set of problems. Earlier this week, the model's sell-out skincare line—Rhode—was named in a lawsuit. The suit alleges "confusion in the market," and with identical brand names, it's not hard to see why.
Owners Purna Khatau and Phoebe Vickers claim that since launching the brand in 2013, "a lot of personal sacrifice and hardship" has been devoted to expanding the business. According to the businesswoman, Rhode has developed a cult following in recent years and is widely considered a respectable brand. In a brief nine years since the initial launch, Khatau and Vickers' brand has sold in luxury stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus and has been seen on Beyoncé, Mindy Kaling, and even Rihanna.
According to the lawsuit, because of Bieber's influence, Instagram granted the model ownership of the username @rhode. Khatau and Vickers claim the social media platform "initially promised" them the handle, as it was "inactive per Instagram policy, but...Instagram decided to allow Bieber to use it although it had no posts until June 8, 2022."
The suit goes on to detail the extent of her celebrity influence, referencing a joint Instagram post with Bieber's personal account that received more than 600,000 likes.
"We have real concerns about the future," Khatau says in the lawsuit. "We've put blood, sweat, and tears into this brand for years... It's disappointing to me that a female entrepreneur, of whom we've been fans for a long time, is trying to smother what we've built."
Now, the fashion brand must fight to have the exclusivity of the name in court. In a separate statement, Rhode clothing brand lawyer Lisa T. Simpson said the situation was "unfortunate."
"We, of course, understand that Hailey wants to use her middle name for her brand, but the law on that is clear: you can't create this kind of branding confusion just because you want to use your name," she said. "What Ms. Bieber is doing is undermining a minority company that two women painstakingly built into a growing global brand."
Bieber and her lawyers have not yet commented on the case.